After some years of wishing that I could play at least somewhat competently, I've recently began an earnest attempt at learning to play. I am terrible at it. Let me help with defining "terrible" - out of 100 games versus Level 2, I might win 5, without taking any mulligans. Five may be too optimistic. No joke. I play with my boys, who have each only learned the movement of the pieces, and they can almost shit-house me. I have downloaded the Chess.com app - and which honestly may be the best app I've ever seen, gaming or otherwise - and am voraciously trying to shorten my learning curve. It's slow going, but I thoroughly enjoy it. It's both maddening and relaxing, and fun despite getting my ass whipped....so it's like a game version of my actual fishing exploits. Anyone else regularly play, and have any pointers / preferred references? If you have the Chess app, and want to really pad your stats, hit me up, and I'll be the Washington Generals to your Harlem Globetrotters.
We, meaning me, dknash, volfanjo, ASmith and Indy used to play a correspondence like game at RedHotPawn, somewhat regularly. You get a couple days to move, so it worked for all of us. They are all good players, though, so you might not like it as much.
The first step to being great is to model yourself after the best ever. So, start hating the Jews right away.
I'm not even at the point where I can either form my own strategies, or identify and combat them, when used against me. I struggle so mightily to think through my own position / spacing, that I usually never see an attack coming, at least before it's too late. My main problem is that I want to play too fast, and lack the discipline to go suitably slow as to my level of experience / expertise.
That's checkers. Or, it may damned well be chess, given how terrible I am at it. Perhaps that's my problem....I'm playing checkers with chess pieces.
First work towards controlling the center 4 squares, and treat every piece as if it was important; too many players give up pawns like they are nothing, then have nothing left towards the end game. Watch corners and learn the gimmicky openings like 4 move mate and 3 move mate. Beyond that, just build experience. You ain’t gonna make a chess master, so just try to better yourself.
Josh Waitzkin learned chess by really figuring out checkmate maneuvers with just the opposing king and a few other pieces on the board. Then he kind of worked backwards from there to be able to apply those concepts to a full chess set. Anyway, he was beating masters at like 9 years old, so I dunno.
That’s not a bad strategy. A lot of modern masters just play openings memorized over time. They generally take the opinion that there are very few “new” moves.
I learned a lot watching vids on youtube... a dude named matojelic has a good channel with all his vids categorized by openings, defenses, and by players.. vids are maybe only 7 to 9 mins long and don't go into terribly crazy analysis, but there's enough explanation to really be helpful (and enjoyable)..
I use to play a lot when I was younger. Picked it up around 2nd grade and loved playing in my elementary days.
Tenny, use the tactics trainer on Chess.com. Work at least 20 problems a day until you get to around 1500, then keep doing 5 or so a day to keep your skills sharp. (You may have to pay a few dollars a month to be able to do that, but it is worth it.) Aside from that, watch videos on openings. Pick an opening that you like (something with 1 e4 or 1. d4 as white and two openings to counter those two openings as black (so you need three total openings-although there are lots of variations that can occur obviously) And play games. I suggest playing a mix of speed games and slow games. Slow games help you build your chess thinking muscles, but fast games help you see a lot of and memorize patterns. My personal problem is that I don't have much time during the day so I just play fast games. My lack of development is a testimony to that. After you do those things you will notice that you are in a lot of games for a lot longer. Then start watching videos and practicing end games. At some point you will start to level off because things start to get super subtle, but it is amazing how much better you can get before that point.
When you work tthe tactics problems do not worry about the clock. Your goal is to try able to see at least two moves ahead--your move, your opponents response, and how you will respond to his response. Eventually you want to stretch that out but it is amazing how much better you can get just by going two moves deep.
I like Mato but I do not believe he is overly effective as a teacher. He makes you feel smarter because you witness some amazing combination, but watching his videos is not going to help you pull those off. Like when you are playing, and a great opportunity comes up, there won't be a European voice whispering in your ear "Can you find the keeler (killer) move?" To me, Mato is good for entertainment, but I doubt many watch chess videos for entertainment. Although, some of this stuff is frankly dumb (if you are intermediate or higher) for beginners this guy named Mike Kummer who gives lessons at the chess club in St. Louis is pretty good. He's also kind of funny.
